Automat
by onehotsummer
Summary: Written for the got-exchange community on Livejournal. The prompt was: Arya/Gendry. 1930's AU. Based off of Simon & Garfunkel's (and Mumford and Sons' remake of) "The Boxer." Gendry makes his way up north to New York just after - or during - the Great Depression, making his living as a boxer. He meets Arya, a wealthy upper-class girl, at one of his matches.


**PART I **

_Giants' Bats Shamefully Silent Against Brooklyn_

_By Harry Hardyng_

_The Dispatch_

_It was a brilliant night for Giants second baseman Pat Crawford, but his 3-for-4 outing went for nought as pinch hitter after pinch hitter flailed and failed, and starter Carl Hubbell floundered along with his team as they lost ingloriously to the Brooklyn Robins by the score of 9 to 4. The Brooklyns battered the hapless Hubbell, usually so sharp, and Giants not named Crawford - 12 of them, all attempting the plate - struck out, flied out or grounded out against dizzying Dazzy Vance._

"Your quill is sharp, Miss Stark. But is it precise? Can it write praise when needed instead of merely pejoratives?"

"It's not a quill. It's just a pen." The editor's antiquated turns of phrase sometimes annoyed Arya, but he was the only one who seemed to take her halfway seriously. He had let her write baseball — even if she had to do it under a pen name — and get away from that infernal society page to which women writers were relegated. "And I praise Crawford. Twice!"

"Just so." Syrio Forel smiled politely, but it didn't reach his piercing dark eyes. "This is well-done. But you can do better. I wonder," he said, tilting his head, "whether you may have tired already of baseball."

The image of the fight she had attended last night with her father and sister flashed into her mind. The lights were blinding and the boxers' skin shone with sweat, then blood. Roars erupted from the ring, sounding like the noises from a menagerie gone feral. And the steel-jawed young boxer, holding up his gloved fists in victory. Even Sansa had been interested, and she never cared about sports. As for Arya, she hadn't been able to breathe for the last round. It was only after the crowd started to talk and chatter again that she had remembered to catch her breath.

"I'm not tired of baseball," she said. "But ..."

"But ...?"

"I could do other sports," she said, all in a rush. "I could try to maybe write about boxing."

He knew they were after him. The hard, hostile eyes that peered from behind crooked locker doors, and the sunken, angry faces around the ring after a victory, could mean nothing else. But why him? Why Gendry Waters, from McClellanville? They all looked at him, he thought, as though he were a rapist who had done for their daughters.

"It's your talent, son," his manager Tobho Mott tried to tell him. "They're scared of you and you ain't got their respect yet so they're just going on being scared."

"Why don't I have their respect yet? Because I'm Southern? Because I'm poor? Because I'm beating them every night? _What?_" Gendry felt the color rising in his cheeks.

"Don't you holler at _me_, son," Mott said, soft, looking menacingly down at Gendry though he stood a foot shorter. Gendry stood down.

"Still don't know why," he mumbled. "What do I have to do?"

"Just keep working on 'em, son." Gendry was no man's son, but Tobho Mott would probably be the closest he was ever going to get. "Just keep goin' out there. Show respect, you'll get respect."

"Haven't gotten any respect yet." But Gendry knew the discussion was about at an end. Mott was good at making it clear when he was reaching the limits of his patience, Gendry had learned that if nothing else.

Mott stood up, waving Gendry off. "You will. You'll get it."

Gendry hoped he was right, but somehow knew he was wrong.

That night he tossed and turned under his flimsy boardinghouse bedcover, his thoughts circling around the wreck of this year. It was almost December, and he'd made no money, nothing to send home to the families who'd taken him in when he was at his lowest. He hadn't even made a friend. He had nothing but his fists, and his muscles that he spent the better part of each day building up - and even those wouldn't last forever. He had come to New York City hoping for a future, but found only a city mired in grime and piss, cigarette smoke and old newspapers.

There had been promises from other managers. "We'll make you famous," they'd said upon getting an eyeful of his bare chest and meaty hands. "Come fight for us, and you'll be rich." But when he showed up at the appointed time and place, the managers never materialized and Gendry was forced to fend for himself, fighting with nobody in his corner. He could almost laugh about it. Tobho Mott had taken pity on him, and now he could almost laugh - but not quite.

There were still the bitter stares from the other fighters. There were still the whispers. Worse, if possible, there were the rich men who came to watch him fight. Gendry wanted to knock their blocks off more than any opponent, with their fur-collared suits and their perfectly stiff hats and their wives, bedecked in diamonds. There were still plenty of rich folks in New York, even after the Crash. And Gendry believed, yes, he had seen them all.

**PART II **

_Southern 'Bull' Handily Trounces Opponent_

_By Harry Hardyng_

_The Dispatch_

_In Hell's Kitchen, they call him the Bull. Easily six feet tall and weighing close to 175, Gendry Waters, a newcomer to the Empire City's boxing scene, hails from North Carolina. Waters defeated Walder Vance in three rounds on Wednesday night, barely breaking a sweat. Though the Bull's following is small, his fame is growing as he mows through the rank-and-file of the city's clubs. The smart money will keep an eye on this kid early, and catch his next match Friday night._

It was going to be loud enough at home with Rickon whining, Sansa oh-mercying, Bran asking questions and Mother shushing. Arya had to get her copy in to Syrio.

"You go on," she said to her father. "I'm going to the automat for a coffee and some pie." Ned Stark opened his mouth to argue, but Arya set her jaw and she saw him fall back, defeated before he began. She didn't even have to remind him — again — that she was nineteen years old and if she wanted a coffee, and a slice of pie, she could very well get one without her father's permission.

Sansa, of course, would never do such a thing. Sansa clung to Father's arm and twittered about the men, the diamonds, and the excitement of it all. She didn't even notice that Arya wasn't leaving with them. Just as well. The sisters got on better than they had when they were younger, but Sansa still asked too many questions, and Arya wasn't in the mood to answer them.

Outside, the night was cool after the hot, crowded gym. Inside the automat, Arya fished in her handbag for ten cents. The coffee, smelling of chicory, steamed pleasantly as she pressed the button for the apple pie, but something was wrong — the nickel dropped in but the carousel didn't move. Arya thought she could hear a grinding of gears. She looked around for the attendant.

"On a break, of course," she said, though she was alone. "Well, it just figures!"

She hadn't noticed the person at the other end of the automat, but then there he was next to her before she knew it. "Busted, huh?" he said, then began to pound on the plastic window of the dispenser as if it had done him some grave wrong. He looked almost ready to pick the entire mechanism up and shake it.

"For goodness' sakes," Arya cried. "What are you doing? Stop! You'll break it."

"Trying to get you your food," he said, not looking at her, winding up for another assault. "Blasted machines."

"You can't just break into the — you lunk! Stop it _right now_!" She put her hand on his shoulder and turned him away from his target, toward her. It took her a moment to register his face up close and unbloodied, but then she recognized him: The Bull.

"Criminently," she said under her breath. Gendry Waters, of all people. And she had just called him a big lunk and grabbed him by his arm. Would he know she was writing about him? Where was her notebook? How did these things happen to her?

"I'm just trying to help you … Just a minute. You were at the fight just now."

"Yes," Arya said, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. He _had_ to not know she was writing about the match. "I came with my father and my sister. We — my father … he gets tickets."

"You like boxing?" He looked skeptical. "I've just never met any ladies who like to watch boxing."

"I'm not a lady," she said. To her surprise, this earned her a flash of a grin. He had a good smile, she noticed, even though his skin was bruised and eyes bloodshot. But was he laughing at her?

"And your sister? Her neither?"

"She's a lady. She doesn't care much about the matches, she just wants to be seen."

He grinned again. "Y'all both were seen," he said.

"Well, but she wants to be." Arya was getting cross in spite of herself. The last thing she wanted was to be noticed when she was trying to write a report. Of course Sansa had drawn stares, she always did. What exactly was he trying to say?

"You did very well," she said primly, trying to steer the conversation away from herself and back to him. Maybe she could even use this in her article. _The Bull gallantly tried to rescue a young lady from a misbehaving automat machine. _"I'm Arya Stark," she said, remembering her manners and remembering, also, that she shouldn't let on that she knew who he was already.

"Gendry Waters," he said, putting out his hand. She took it, trying to put a man's strength into it like her half-brother Jon had taught her. "Don't shake hands like a girl, Arya," he'd said, "shake hands like a man."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Arya said. "I'm sorry you weren't able to …" She gestured at the implacable vending window.

"I'll buy you another," Gendry said, but he looked doubtful somehow.

"Oh, no, no," protested Arya. "I'm fine with coffee."

"At least join me then. After all the hoopla, it's a little too quiet in here."

Because Arya knew what he meant, and even though — and because — she had a looming deadline, she followed Gendry over to his seat. "I'll only stay a minute," she promised herself. "Just long enough to be polite."

Three hours later, she let herself into the house as quietly as she could. They'd had to let the butler go — thank goodness, though she missed Rodrik Cassel and his little girl — now she was grateful nobody was awake to hear her come in.

"Have fun?"

Nobody, of course, but Bran.

Her younger brother sat in his wheelchair in the darkened parlor. But there was no accusation in his voice.

"Were you waiting up for me?"

"No," he said, "well, that's not entirely true. I was up, and then when I knew you weren't home, I thought I'd stay up."

"Are you feeling quite all right?" She remembered how he'd been ill just before they had left.

"Mostly better. But where have you been?"

"I was at the automat," she said, feeling her face redden in the darkness.

"For that long? Father and Sansa got home hours ago. … You were with someone!"

"Bran Stark, I am nineteen years old and if I want to have coffee with a — with someone I can!"

"I haven't forgotten how old you are," Bran said mildly.

He always did this. She could never keep anything from Bran — or Jon — even though neither one ever pressed her for her secrets. "I was having a coffee with one of the fighters from tonight's match. He tried to break the machine when it wouldn't give me my pie, and then he asked me to sit with him, and the next thing I knew it was this hour of the — oh, Bran, I have to make a phone call! Right now!"

"A phone call at _this _hour?"

"It's not him," she called, nearly running down the hall to the kitchen. "I'll talk to you in the morning!"

Syrio sounded supremely calm when she explained. "I knew you wouldn't miss your deadline, Miss Stark. There's no need to panic. Breathe more slowly."

"I could talk to him … learn the history …"

"Be very careful, Arya," Syrio said.

"I won't let the cat out about Harry," she said. "Besides, he won't see it. He told me he never reads the paper, and I know he can hardly read, he barely had any school…"

"I don't mean about Harry," replied Syrio, and hung up. Arya looked at the receiver in her hand for a moment, then went upstairs to write. She would call in the story to the night desk later, and she wondered if Bran would be awake to hear that too. If he was, she would just have to explain. 

It should have been impossible to carry on a friendship with a young lady like Arya Stark, whose parents were wealthy and whose family name was known in all the social circles. Even Gendry's manager had heard of them. "You're keeping company the Stark girl?" he had said, surprised. "She's a beauty. But I heard she doesn't talk to men."

"You're talking about her sister," Gendry said. "Arya talks."

"Oh, the younger one. Not such a beauty, that one."

Gendry had risen half out of his seat, but forced himself back down. Inside his too-long jacket sleeve, he balled his hand into a fist. "She's well enough," he said between clenched teeth.

Later, he wondered. Was she a beauty? Not that, no … especially not compared to her sister, who outshone any woman in a room. But there was something about Arya that kept her from plainness — something in the grey eyes, or the quick cautious smile. "She's not too beautiful for you," Gendry said to himself. "But she's too smart."

He told her the next time they met, after another victory.

"Don't know why you're hanging around with me," he'd muttered, trying to be polite but succeeding only in being rude. "I'm not the kind of fellow your family knows."

"Don't be ridiculous," was all she'd said. Then on to the next question. Arya had hardly stopped asking questions since she had met him, in fact. And yet, he didn't seem to mind. She was a nosy girl, for sure. And she had her opinions about all of his answers. "You're too clever by half," he said to her once, but instead of looking angry, she had looked pleased. She had smiled so widely that two dimples appeared, and Gendry blinked in surprise. Where had _that_ Arya been hiding?

The fourth time, he told her about his journey to the city. The train ride had been long and cold, the people silent and angry. The Depression was beginning to back the country's workers up against a wall, and he could see it in their faces. As for Gendry, he had always been poor, so it was no change to him.

It had hurt, though, to sell his mother's pearl earrings — the only thing he had left of her. He'd been told enough times that he should go north, that it was the only hope a boy like him had, baseball or fighting, and finally he had made the decision — but then there was no money for the train ticket. So he'd sold her earrings and bought a ticket and with the little cash left over after the bare minimum of food to keep himself fit to box, he'd bought a pair of used, decrepit boxing gloves. And that was all for his mother's earrings.

He had never told that story to anyone else. But it was easy to talk to Arya. Sometimes, in the stillness after a loss, he would imagine holding her hand, or asking her to go see a movie. But he could never afford to take her to a movie, and she would never hold his hand. So he would go to sleep sullen and wake up angry, taking it out on the punching bags at the club. The nights that he saw her were easier.

"You're gone on the little Stark girl," his manager had said once. Anyone else, he would have broken their nose for that comment. But not Mott.

"I don't know whether I am or not," he said honestly. "How am I supposed to know?"

"You've been with a woman," Mott said. "With your looks, you've probably been with more than one. Does she make you feel like that?"

Gendry didn't know how to answer this. There'd been girls back home, but that was when he was young, and they were younger. A kiss behind the mill now and then was all that was. When he got to New York City, it was another story. In Midtown, the women seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, older than he was, reeking of experience. After days of talking to no one but employers he'd never hear from again, Gendry had been so lonely it was painful, and when a lithe redhead called out for him, he'd paid that night's winnings for her — it was supposed to be spent on two cans of beans.

"D'ya like it?" she'd cooed to him when they had finished.

"No," he said, and began to get dressed. "But thank you just the same."

Her laughter had followed him down the street.

_Waters Continues Triumphant Steamroll Through City's Contenders_

_By Harry Hardyng_

_The Dispatch_

_Everyone who's anyone who's interested in boxing has heard of "the Bull," properly called Gendry Waters, by now. The pride of McClellanville, N.C., is making an unprecedented run against New York's elite boxers. His matches have moved from the undercard to the main event as the weeks roll by. Oh, he's not invincible — the broad-shouldered Waters has lost in some intriguing ways, including one match where this reporter swears that the referee was distracted during the eight-count and sped it up, thus leading to the Bull's early dismissal. Another night, Waters arrived already looking like he had gone ten rounds. He had no explanation, but did not defeat his opponent that time._

It should have been more difficult to be friends with Gendry. There were so many obstacles in the way, mainly that she was covering his boxing matches and called the night desk later and later each night with her story. It never seemed to matter when she intended to leave: when she met Gendry in the automat or, sometimes, at a diner, the hours slipped by like the passersby outside, and she would find herself once again wondering just how it got to be 11 or 12 at night.

Gendry had had no explanation for Harry Hardyng as to why he had shown up at his match already bruised and exhausted, but to Arya he related angrily how two fighters he didn't know but by sight had cornered him in the alley behind the club, rained blows on him that would have been far from legal in the ring, and told him in no uncertain terms that he should take his "crumb-bum cracker self back to North Carolina." Arya was easily madder than Gendry by the time he had finished his story. Her face was flushed and indignant. "How dare they!" she said. "Do you know who they were?" Already, she was planning how to take them down in the press.

"No," said Gendry. "But it doesn't matter. They all want me gone."

"Why do you think that? Why would they? You're not _that _good— Oh, nuts. I didn't mean it like that." All she meant was that he wasn't out-and-out destroying the field.

Gendry was looking at her with a mix of amusement and irritation in his face. It was something Arya saw quite often when they spoke, and she wasn't sure if she liked it or not. "I'm not that good, am I? Well, it doesn't matter," he said again. "They say the same thing every day. In the locker rooms, in the streets. 'Go back where you came from,' they say."

"Everyone here came from somewhere else," said Arya.

"What about your family?" 

"They — well, the Starks have been here a long while, that's true."

"You see. You got no problems at all."

"We do!" Arya cried. "We've got plenty of problems. My older brothers are in military school and I worry what will happen to them, and my baby brother runs around like a wild thing while my mother tries to keep us all in line.

"Then there's my sister," she went on hotly, "she's perfect and beautiful and she won't shut up about boys. She's always done everything right, and I've always done everything wrong compared to her. It's been that way our whole lives." Arya shook her head. She loved Sansa but sometimes she wanted to throw her out the nearest window. The feeling, she knew, was mutual.

"All that's small potatoes," Gendry said, "compared to being poor. Not knowing where your next meal will come from or how you're going to pay for your house."

Arya stood up. She had had enough of this conversation and if she stayed she was going to end up telling him things that were family matters, too private to share with an outsider. But Gendry grabbed her hand, and she froze.

"Look, I didn't mean that. I know it's all the same problems. You and your sister, me and these people up here — we don't fit in. Don't go."

She hardly knew why she was doing it, but she sat back down. He had not let go of her hand.

"My younger brother is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life," she said.

Gendry squeezed her hand, surprisingly gently for how strong she knew he was. "I'm sorry."

"I'll finish my coffee," she said, weakly. That at least she could do. "I don't know why I'm staying here now," she went on. "I always intend to leave earlier and then the time just flies by and …" Arya broke off, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

"I do the same," Gendry said. "I tell myself I need to get back to my room and go to sleep, but then when I get there I wish I'd stayed longer."

His face was bright red and he was looking down at the counter, and his empty plate and wadded napkin. Arya felt the sudden urge to rescue him from his embarrassment, but as usual, she couldn't think of what to say. "I—"

"Never mind," Gendry said. "Just tell me some more about your family. Somehow from you I like hearing about it — a real family that's still all together."

Arya looked at her watch, then set down her handbag again. His blue eyes were so kind, and she felt somehow that she and Gendry had much to learn from each other — if not tonight, then some other night. The copy could wait.

**PART III**

Ned and Catelyn learned not to expect Arya home until late some nights, and, resigned to their youngest daughter's ways, had no choice but to accept the new state of affairs. Sansa asked questions Arya did not answer, but Bran she could talk to.

"What is there to talk about with Waters for as long as you're out?" he asked once. 

"We mostly tell each other about our families, our pasts, I suppose."

"Never your future?" 

"No," Arya said, surprised. "Why?"

Bran adjusted his blanket over his knees. "At some point, you're going to run out of past," he said.

Arya tried to think about that later when she was with Gendry, but it made her feel shy to discuss the future when all she could think about was wanting him in it. So she fell back on the past again.

"Did you ever know your mother?"

"They say she died when I was too young to remember her, but I still think I do. Black hair, and she used to sing to me. That's all I know. She worked in a saloon."

She tried to keep her reaction off her face.

"She only served liquor," Gendry added. "She didn't serve men."

"Oh, of course." Obviously Arya had failed to look neutral. But she was too curious to abandon the topic now. "But how did she stay out of jail?"

Gendry shook his head, chuckling. He was laughing at her! She was only trying to sort out the history. "You don't have any idea how things work in the rest of the world," he said.

That stung. But Arya needed this background to set the scene for Gendry's arrival in New York City. She set her jaw. "Obviously not," she said, and the surprise on his face almost made her forget her anger in a laugh. "So tell me. Was it a speakeasy or were the cops in her pocket or both?"

_Waters' mother was employed by a man who was a friend of the mayor of the tiny burg of McClellanville, S.C., which, as your correspondent hopes you will remember, is the young fighter's hometown. This mayor took the astounding step of converting the town's entire upper crust — such as it was — to Catholicism. Thus reborn, the pious of course needed sacramental wine for their new faith. Gallons and gallons of it, and some of it in the guise of Scotch whisky or ale. Naturally, the citizens were granted a religious exemption to the Volstead Act. And the citizens were so grateful to the saloonkeeper for helping them along the path to righteousness that they paid in great heaps of coin for the privilege to take the Eucharist. You may serve either God or Mammon, says the Good Book, but in McClellanville, one tavern owner was allowed to openly serve brown liquor in the employ of both._

"You've sold me out," Gendry said angrily. Arya's stomach tightened.

"Whatever do you mean," she answered, her tone artificially light, looking at her knuckles, her handbag, anywhere but at Gendry's blazing eyes and reddened face.

"You're telling that writer about me."

Arya dropped her handbag. _Do not bite your lip_, she ordered herself. In trying not to chew her lip, she ended up biting her tongue instead.

"Writer?"

"By God, it's bad enough that you're false. You don't need to act stupid on top of it. You've been telling Harry Hardyng everything we've talked about so he could put it in his stories about me." She chanced a look at him, and the anger had faded, leaving a deep, surprising sadness. "Arya, I thought I could trust you."

_How on earth am I going to get out of this,_ Arya thought wildly. "You can — you can trust me … I just thought that …" _Think of something, Arya. _"I thought that your story needed to be told …"

That was the wrong thing to say. Gendry stood up, slamming his chair down behind him with his powerful arms. Arya jumped. "Seems like you could have asked me whether I thought my stories need to be told."

"Wait," she said, floundering. There was one thing she didn't understand.

"What do you want?"

"How did you know — how did you find out that …"

"I can read, Miss Stark," he said. "Yes, even 'the pride of McClellanville' can pick up a paper and see all the things he thought he told someone in confidence. And it made me look a fool. A rube from the Deep South. Just like a country boy who can't read … who can't do anything but fight … no brains, all brawn. I see what you and Harry think of me."

"Wait! Who taught—"

"And I wouldn't have thought you viewed me in that light, Arya. I thought you may have had some respect for me. But why'd you do it? Why'd you tell Harry about my mother and father? How much is he paying you?" He wheeled back on her, facing her. For a moment she was terrified for her life. _He won__'__t hurt me_, she told herself. "_How much?__" _

"Seven … seven dollars a story," she stammered. Why did she say that? Now he was going to ask more questions.

"Why, Arya? Don't you have enough money? Why sell me to your friend as the dumb country boy without parents?" His face had changed again, anger to sadness. It was disconcerting — if only he would stay one way or the other! "Did you want them all to pity me instead of taking me on my own merits?"

"I wanted you to be _more_ than that!" Arya shouted. "More than the unshakeable fighter nobody could get close to. I thought if people here knew your history, where you came from, they might be able to understand you and support you and _that__'__s _why I wrote those stories, so that you would be _human_ to them instead—"

She stopped, suddenly. Gendry was looking at her very strangely. Oh, no, she hadn't actually said that. Surely not.

"_You_ wrote the stories?"

Arya dropped her head into her hands. There was no use lying to him now.

"And this Harry Hardyng is putting his name on your work?"

Well, there was a possible out. If she could make Gendry believe she was only ghostwriting — but no. She was done telling tales. One look at his face convinced her of that. "There is no Harry," she said. "Well, there is, but he isn't anywhere around here. He's just a man my sister was engaged to once — an arranged marriage — they never met and it didn't work out. I'm not even sure he's alive, if he ever existed at all."

Gendry was paying no attention to Arya's theories about the mysterious Harry Hardyng. He was looking at her face, probing.

"How long have you been doing this?"

"Writing? Or writing as Harry?"

"Either one. I just … I don't understand. They won't employ a lady?"

"I'm not a lady," Arya said. "But, anyway, a woman can write society pieces, marriage announcements, even the odd recipe column. I've been writing my whole life. I never found anything else I wanted to do. Father took the boys to baseball games, and I tagged along when I could. I was hooked."

"Baseball can do that. I used to play. Sometimes I wish I still …" He cleared his throat. "But go on."

"Let me finish. I wanted to write sports. So my editor—"

"Syrio?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"You're always telling me you needed to go meet Syrio. I was so jealous of Syrio, sometimes I imagined every opponent was him, since I had decided he was your sweetheart."

"My _sweetheart,__" _Arya choked. "Syrio is easily 60 years old, bald on top … swarthy …"

"Go on," Gendry said, a grin threatening at his mouth.

"Syrio was willing to let me try it, but not under my own name. First of all, my family … it would be a … I suppose it would be a bit of a scandal that the youngest daughter of Stark had to work outside the home."

"But you did have to," Gendry said. "I know, because you told me your father had taken a bath after Black Tuesday and hadn't recovered. You told me that your parents and your brothers were trying to hide it from Sansa, but that they didn't mind you knowing."

"You remember that?" It must have been months ago that she had told Gendry about that.

"I remember everything you've said to me," he said.

Arya's heart pounded dangerously. _Back to the story_, she told herself. "Syrio promised me he would keep it a secret, and that if I could write, he would keep me on under a pen name writing whatever sports I liked. I started out writing baseball. My brother Robb loves baseball, and Bran played before—"

"So why aren't you still out there writing baseball? Why boxing? Syrio took you off the beat?"

"No," Arya said. "I told him I wanted to write the boxing stories. I still write baseball. If you were reading the _entire_ sports section instead of just looking for your name, you would have seen Harry's byline on the Giants pieces as well." To her great relief, Gendry smiled in earnest.

"Yes, well, that's not what I was focusing on. I'll look harder next time. But why boxing now?"

_Out with it. He'll know if you don't tell the truth. _"I came to your first match by chance. Bran was supposed to go but he was feeling poorly and so my mother wanted him to stay at home. My father was going to bring Rickon but I pestered — I had to get out of the house with my mother fretting over Bran. So Father brought me. I saw you fight and — and I decided I wanted to write about you."

"About me?" Gendry looked down, scuffled his feet and for the moment looked all the world like the Southern boy he wanted to leave behind.

"Yes," Arya said simply. "You were compelling."

"I reckon that's a compliment."

Gendry had somehow moved closer to her and she could feel her skin prickling with the nearness. "Quite," she answered weakly, but it didn't seem to matter what she said. Gendry took her face in his hands, gave one blue stare into her eyes and kissed her.

"How did you learn to read, anyway? I thought you told me you didn't have enough school." Gendry was holding Arya's arm as they walked through the Mall in Central Park. The first light snow was coming down and she was fiercely happy.

"I didn't. I never paid attention in class until I dropped out after eighth grade. The teachers didn't care, they were only concerned with the kids who might go places, and I wasn't one of those." He still sounded bitter, but Arya noticed the tinge of it was farther away than it had been when he usually talked about his childhood.

"So then who taught you?"

"Stannis Baratheon's daughter," Gendry said. "Shireen."

"Whose daughter? Who is _Shireen_?"

"Don't you get jealous, now," Gendry laughed, "I haven't forgotten how you used to make me suffer with your Syrio. Shireen Baratheon is all of twelve years old. Her old man is the bookkeeper for my manager's company, and one day I came in for my paycheck and Shireen was teaching this other fellow to read, one of her pa's friends. Seaworth is his name. He never went to school at all but spent all his time at sea until he fetched up here and was hired to do odd jobs at the arena. Anyway, Baratheon made me wait and wait — there was someone important in there talking to him — and I listened to Shireen teaching Seaworth to read and finally I went over and asked if they minded if I got in on some of the action."

"Did they?"

"No," Gendry said, "and then we kept meeting, over the months. Seaworth came and went and just when I thought he was gone for good, there he'd be again, shut up like a clam about where he'd been and what he'd been doing. But I'd been learning all along, so I got ahead of him. Shireen eventually told me to go out and read on my own, that she was done with me. I was graduated by a twelve-year-old!"

"She sounds like someone I'd like to know," Arya mused. "Well, I'm grateful to her. Didn't her father mind her associating with two men?"

Gendry smiled wryly. "He barely noticed me. Seaworth was just like family to him. But me, he never even glanced at other than to hand me my pay, such as it was. I don't believe he minded anything Shireen was doing. She's a smart kid, and he's absentminded until it comes to those numbers. Then he doesn't miss a trick, believe me."

"How much did you get paid, anyway?" The moment it was out of her mouth she knew she had erred. "Never mind that, Gendry, don't get angry. I didn't think."

His face had hardened. "Don't worry about _that,_" he said. "It's not enough to even register on your father's banknotes."

"You just said you remembered Father's financial troubles," Arya reminded him, feeling her own anger rising to the surface. "Don't act like you think we're still rich just when it suits you to keep yourself to yourself."

To her surprise, Gendry agreed. "We can fight about that later," he said. "For now … let's just walk." He squeezed her arm. Maybe this would be easy after all.

Then again, nothing was ever as simple as it should be.

"Telephone call, Arya, love," said her mother from downstairs. Arya heard Sansa's door slam shut. She knew Sansa was hoping the call would be for her. It took everything Arya had not to stick her tongue out at the closed door as she passed.

"Syrio?"

"It's me," came the deep voice, and Arya's heart skipped a beat.

"Gendry? Where are you dialing from? How—"

"I need to tell you something and tell you quick. I joined a baseball team. They recruited me for catcher, but then they switched me to first base, but then they said I might be a better—"

"Slow down, you aren't making any sense. _Recruited_ for a baseball team? Which one?" Her mind jumped to the Giants. What a dream it would be having Gendry on her beloved team—

"They're called the New York All-Stars. You wouldn't have heard of them."

_What_? "I am a sports writer. I certainly would have heard of them." But even so, she hadn't.

"Arya, you are the most stubborn girl I ever met. Listen to me. They're a new team. They're going traveling across the country. We leave Friday."

She wasn't sure which piece of information to digest first; they were all bouncing off her like so many fungos, fouled off by batters at practice. Gendry was playing baseball. Gendry had joined a barnstorming team. Gendry was leaving in two days — that was the one that settled in her stomach after it hit.

"You're … leaving?" She barely recognized her voice.

"I have to, Arya. They're after me. The other fighters, they want to hurt me, maybe kill me. They're all banding together to bust me up. They want me in the hospital or worse. I have to leave."

The words were falling cold on her like the snow outside the window. But the anger that had never been far away raged now. 

"Of course you have to. Just go, then. Don't try to solve it, just leave. I knew you would." She knew she would hurt him, and was glad for it.

"These fellows are going to help me," Gendry said. "And I'll help them. And we can make some money. You know _that's_ important. We're a bunch of men with no families, no futures. Just what we have in our arms and legs. We're brothers, in a way."

"_Brothers_," Arya spat out. "Well, go then. Go! Goodbye!" She almost hung up the phone right then, but something stayed her.

"If you want to come say goodbye—"

"As if I would!"

"—my train leaves Friday at 7:30."

"I _never_!" she cried into the receiver. "I will never see you again as long as you live, Gendry Waters!" Then she did slam down the phone, and ran up to her room. Tears were already blinding her. She didn't care if Mother or Sansa heard. Of course he was leaving. There was never any doubt that he would.

**PART IV**

Gendry lit a cigarette with hands swollen from his last fight, and from the early-spring cold snap that had settled in, blowing freezing wind through the cracks in his window. He had woken that morning shivering. But the cold was less painful than the knowledge that he had ruined everything with Arya — that his decision to travel with the baseball team had put too heavy a burden on their friendship.

He had heard it in her voice over the phone. "Well, go then!" she had shouted, and the force of it had shocked him and almost convinced him to ring up the All-Stars manager and tell him he was backing out, he had to stay in New York. But in the next moment he'd thought of the men and boys over the cold months who had threatened him, hissed expletives and laid him out in alleys and he knew he had to move on. There was something about him, maybe his accent, maybe his fighting style, maybe nothing he could put his finger on, that rubbed these people the wrong way. It was just as well to get out.

But Arya — well, he could do nothing about Arya. She had made up her mind, and he had told her, just a few days ago, that one of the things he liked about her was how stubborn she was.

"You're the only person who will ever say that," Arya had laughed, "and you're probably only going to say it once."

The memory of her rare laugh hurt him like a blow to the chest. He would never hear it again, or hold her tiny hand, or kiss her under the trees in the Ramble in Central Park. He would never again look down at her face under a streetlight in the Village or Midtown. He wouldn't walk with her on the Water Street bricks. The memories of their short, perfect time together piled up and weighed on him until he had to sit down on his suitcase, head in hands.

"Who's that dame coming?" he heard one of his teammates say suddenly. "She's in an awful hurry."

The quick gait was unmistakable, but it couldn't be — but it was. Unconscious of all the eyes on her, straight across the station platform came Arya, looking purposeful and determined.

"You're going to ask me to stay," he said.

"Of course not," Arya said. "I'm coming with you." She gestured to her valise. "It's all arranged. I got my ticket last night."

"You're going to run away with me?"

"I'm nineteen years old," she said, sighing as if she had said this a thousand times before. "It's not really running away anymore. It's just leaving."

"Will your parents understand that?"

"My father will ... and Bran will ... and that's all that matters."

"_I_ don't even understand it," Gendry said. "I thought you weren't ever going to see me again."

Arya set down her satchel in a puff of impatience and cold. "I'm here, aren't I? I changed my mind. That is … if you'll have the company."

Gendry pulled her in close. He had no words to answer her, but she snuggled down into his embrace as the train pulled into the station, its squeaking wheels a song.

_Barnstorming 'All-Stars' Hit Harrisburg, Indy, Wichita_

_By Arya Stark_

_The Dispatch_

_PHILADELPHIA — The newly formed New York All-Stars are taking their road team to Middle America, beginning in Pennsylvania and continuing out to the dust-ravaged plains of Kansas. The trail may lead even further west, depending on the towns' response to a group of dedicated young players who share talent and heart. Manager Beric Dondarrion points out two standouts thus far: left fielder Edric Dayne, whose older brothers have also excelled on the baseball diamond, and pugnacious catcher Gendry Waters. That name will sound familiar to any Dispatch readers who follow boxing action, as Waters spent last year on the New York circuit taking on all comers in the ring. He was known as "The Bull," but now Waters is happy to be part of a team. Will he outdo his fighting feats as part of the traveling New York nine? Will Edric Dayne surprise even those who haven't heard the Dayne name? Will Dondarrion take his team all the way to California? Keep an eye trained on this space, readers …_

**The End**


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